History Of The Turbulent 1960's
Before the baby boomers came of age, it was a different world. Some like to view that time as "the good old days" which were far from perfect, but easily predictable. The men were the bread winners while the women stayed home with the 2.5 children in the homes with the white picket fence. If you played by the rules, your company would give you a gold watch at retirement and you could live out your golden years around your family until you died at the life expectancy of 70 years old.
Of course it was not like that, not for everyone. This is part of the reason the 1960's became turbulent. For those who just didn't seem like the American dream would ever come true, they started to speak up. They were getting angry and were not going to take it anymore.
The decade started with the highest of idealism and ended with cynicism and violence that would forever shake up our innocence. Ideas for world peace, letting all people get along, cleaning up the earth were still there, but militant groups would not be satisfied with the quiet ways to get things done. The holders of the status quo were set in their ways. Then things started to get out of control in the 1963 when they shot John F. Kennedy.
The assassination of a president is nothing really new in American history nor in the history of the world. After all, President Lincoln was also killed and attempts had been made on the lives of other presidents. President Garfield was also shot by an assassin only to be killed by his medical treatment for the wound. Why did his death make our nation reel? Maybe it was because he stood for the idealism of the decade. He was the image of Camelot. He was what we were supposed to be. To kill him off was to take pot shots at the new ideals of what we could become. Nothing was quite the same, although we still stood for change. It just became more urgent to make change happen. [Bloody Treason : On Solving History's Greatest Murder Mystery : The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by Noel Twyman, and Kennedy Assassinated!: The World Mourns: A Reporter's Story by Wilborn Hampton, and A G-Man's Journal: A Legendary Career inside the FBI--from the Kennedy Assassination to the Oklahoma City Bombing by Oliver Revell and Dwight Williams]
During the era, we also would witness the assassinations of his brother, Robert Kennedy as well as other figures such as Martin Luther King and Malcom X. [MLK assassination and Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Gerald L. Posner, and He Slew the Dreamer: My Search, with James Earl Ray, for the Truth about the Murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. by William Bradford Huie, and The MURKIN Conspiracy: An Investigation into the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King JR. by Philip H. Melanson]
[RFK assassination Did Castro Kill Kennedy? by Moscovit Andrei, and Robert F. Kennedy Assassination: New Revelations on the Conspiracy and Cover-up, 1968-1991 by Philip H. Melanson]
[Malcom X assassination Marching Toward Freedom by Robert Weisbrot, and The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X, Alex Haley and Ossie Davis]
The distrust of the establishment was spouted in the phrase, "Never trust anyone over 30." Of course this led to much of the conspiracy theories on the assassinations of our leaders. Then the secret was voiced loud over the experiments the government held on poor, black men in Tuskegee which denied them treatment that was available to others with syphilis. If our government could do something like that, could it be possible they are responsible for other atrocities?
War spouted, or should we say a military police action, in Vietnam. It was a country most Americans have never heard about until it came under threat by the so-called evils of Communism which would somehow threaten our democracy. Who would have thought decades later it would still be Communist and our freedoms would still be intact. Men who were barely old enough to vote were thrown on a plane to fight for our country while many on our home front protested them being sent to fight such a senseless, immoral battle. The massacre of the village of My Lai, where US forces shot down 450 civilian men, women and children, became a symbol of what was evil with this war.
We had the frantic momentum of the Civil Rights Movement which killed and injured many participants both black and white in order to make things fair to all. The Women's Right Movement which has been brewing since the turn of the century was starting to get more vocal, though the only deaths and injuries to participants were from abusive spouses or fathers opposed to their women thinking they could have the audacity to be equal to a man.
Of course it was not all tension and strife during these times. Hippies and peace lovers throughout the land indulged every form of entertainment available. Free love was the recreation of the time, of course AIDS was not even a thought. Recreational use of drugs flourished. Music was the center of the lives of our young people who were the new movers and shakers. Woodstock was the major concert of the decade where anybody who was anyone was on stage. [Elliott Landy's Woodstock Vision: The Spirit of a Generation by Elliot Landy
] These baby boomers would dictate what was in and what was out for the next few decades.
The US had its proudest moment in the summer of 1969, July 20th, when Neil Armstrong took "one small step" becoming the first man on the moon. [First on the Moon: What It Was like when Man Landed on the Moon by Barbara Hehner]
The New Age Movement was really starting to gain its roots in our culture as many embraced Eastern thought and philosophy. Cult groups would pop up from time to time recruiting young college students away from a promising career. Communes developed all over the nation in remote areas where idealistic youths could set up an alternate community where all live the dictates of what they thought was paradise.
We were about to lose all grasp of our innocence and trust on August 8th 1969. An unknown group of people have raided the home of Sharon Tate and murder her and several other people. There was also a raid on the home of a wealthy merchant and his wife. Similarities in the cases sparked fear of a crazed, possibly drug addicted team of brutal murderers who could randomly attack leaving a bloody mess and a message in blood such as "pig". It wasn't until a member of the group of Manson's followers bragged about her part in the murders that these communes came under scrutiny as potentially dangerous. People started to lock their doors at night. [The Garbage People: The Trip to Helter-Skelter and beyond with Charlie Manson and the Family by John Gilmore and Manson: The Unholy Trail of Charlie and the Family by John Gilmore and Ron Kenner].
Other events of great note include the thalidomide scare of the early 60s which caused children to be born deformed. A collision of a United DC-8 with a TWA plane that killed 126 passengers and crew members and 8 people on the ground on December 16, 1960. An attempted overthrow of Castro known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961. Attacks of the Boston Strangler during 1962-1964 committed by Albert DeSalvo. The murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964 where 38 witnesses did nothing and let her die. The Alaskan earthquake of 1964 which registered 8.6 and was the worst in US history. The first, among many, riots in Los Angeles (Watts) in 1965 when policemen pulled over a black man on suspicion of drunk driving. Charles Whitman who took shots at other students in the University of Texas while cooped up in a bell tower on August 1st 1966. The fire on Apollo I January 27, 1967 which killed 3 astronauts.
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